Monday, August 2, 2010

Normally I don't like fielding unpainted units, much less armies, but when JVB wanted to run his recently-recovered Grey Knights, it was hard to resist the temptation to put the traitors on the table. And since when is Chaos about resisting temptation? Besides, this will be a chance to see the recruits so far in action.

We set out for 2000pts, which is the size I was building the Scythiak Usurpation towards, but since I haven't built the vehicles yet I made a few substitutions and proxies. Instead of a Hydra I used the Heavy Bolter squad, a second-hand Chimera served as one of the Chimeras, and some tanks looted from the Merkans provided others - a Hellhound as stand-in for another Chimera, and a Russ as the Eradicator.

JVB just got the DH back from someone who was going to paint them but never did, so there's a lot of Bare Metal Knights and Black Knights mixed in with the Grey ones. His guardsmen that he's using for Stormtroopers need repairs, and we subbed in some borrowed dreads and a rhino to fill his list out. Neither side is going to look top-notch here, so if you want a pretty report, move on. If you're just looking for a bit of a lark, read on!

We rolled up a standard mission, Annihilation/Pitched Battle. GK won the roll, picked a side and setup.

He set up spread out fairly evenly. One ST squad and a dread on my left moving through a large ruin. Captain, psycannon GKs and another ST squad middle-left. Middle right had termies and flamer STs with second dread in back, right had incerator GKs with the Rhino as moving cover. Teleport squad in reserve.

I set up HBs and Eradicator on my left. Mid-left came both Chimeras and their occupants, followed by the Ogryn, a RR squad and the techno-barbarian platoon. Mid-right came the cultist platoon, another RR squad, and the lascannons/mortars. Since we were doing KP, I went ahead and combined the two infantry squads in each platoon. No commissars or anything to make them real solid tarpits, but mainly I just wanted them to run interference to allow the Ogryn and RRs to close. My right was pretty open with no good fire lanes, so I just left it empty of troops and tried to concentrate more towards the middle. Spawntinels would Outflank, and Khonan/Marbo was of course in Reserve.

The washed, but unpainted masses.

Turn one the DH moved up, and the forces of Chaos sluggishly advanced, repositioning some forces on the left more towards the middle. One GK dread blew off the Eradicator's main gun, starting the trend for what would be a very poor day for the tank. The Captain's psychic hood shut down the psyker battle squad, and that and some poor (but not deadly) psychic tests would keep the PBS from managing to do anything all game.

Turn two the STs on my left shot and ran off the heavy bolter squad. Dread fire wrecked Astrakenor's Chimera, so he joined the wave of folks heading towards the center. The teleport squad arrived, and landed next to the Captain via homer.

Sorry for the poor pics throughout - still trying to figure out my wife's new camera and how to bypass settings...

In the Chaos turn the Spawntinels and Khonan both arrived, and one demo charge later the recently-teleported GKs were slain, but the Captain made his invulnerable save. Shortly thereafter, Khonan gets gunned down by a ST's plasmagun.

More light in the game room would probably help too, and I'm sure the black board isn't doing me any favors...

Rough Riders get shot up, prep for assault.

STs flamer cultists, while Terminators and Ogryn position for the true battle...

Stormtroopers climb over rubble to assault the stricken Eradicator, eventually managing to kill it.

Cultists move aside to allow Ogryn to assault STs and Rhino. My plan was to try to only hit the STs with a few guys, prolonging the combat and blocking the Termies from shooting/charging the Ogryn. In the end my good to hit rolls and JVB's poor armor saves doomed the STs but left the Ogryn open.

Lucky SOB who for a time was the sole survivor of his ST squad, making many saves against attempts to kill him and collect that KP. He eventually succumbed to repeated mortar fire.

Tramplemaster Gyro flanks the GK Terminators and attacks from behind as they're occupied with Ogryn. With a Furious Charge boost from Astrakenor it makes it even easier, and the hunting lances finish off the Terminators.

Meanwhile Astrakenor, Von Drakin and their retinues try in vain to destroy the Rhino. It makes Astrakenor so angry that his backpack falls off.

The GK captain moved up and attacked the RRs. With hunting lances expended, he's a much harder nut to crack! He cuts down two riders, and then...

Bzow! Apocalypse, you heretic scum! Seven more RRs go down, and Gyro hoofs it away to fight another day.

The captain's glory is fleeting, as soon Killgore!, Kantor Fett and others beat him down.

Not pictured, but other achievements on the left, with the techno-barbarian platoon, Papa JJ helped direct a good bit of FRFSRF lasgun death into various ST and GK squads, with Khorne Dog helped the platoon make its Ld rolls to accept the orders, and Notbrent's aim was true.

End result, Chaos victory.

The army still feels woefully light on anti-tank. Maybe having the Hydra instead of the HBs would help there, but probably not enough. Maybe some more games on somewhat less cluttered tables will show it to be sufficient, maybe not.

The Straken/Ogryn/RR combo worked like I thought it would. Ogryn to suck a charge, with Counter Attack to help them out a bit, and standard for rerolls on their Stubborn 7. Then RRs, if necessary with help from a Move Move Move order to make the Fleet roll high move around to countercharge whoever the Ogryn have in hand, aided by Straken's Furious Charge to make them I6/S6. Granted, it's a horribly expensive combo, but fun to pull off vs. fancy elite units.

5 comments:

That is a nice combo for Straken. I have spent a long time thinking about combos that work well for him, and that is one of the better ones. Good to see it works. Plus, there is something satisfying about giving Ogryns bonuses to take on Terminators.

How did I miss this until now?? Very enjoyable batrep, thanks for putting it together for us to read. Congratulations to the Scythiak Usurpation for sticking it to the Imperium's fancy lads, and to Papa JJ for obviously being the lynch pin of the whole Chaos victory! (Haha.) Great looking table, too. I really like the way you defined the streets using the grey, gritty stuff. Is any of that glued down or is it all loose?

WIP-REVIEW: More scenery for Robotech!
-
First update of this year!
I've been building the scenery sets from 4Ground I have so far:
Primera actualización del año!
He estado armando los sets de escen...